Juggling all the balls

I've had my eldest child back for nearly a week now, and survived the transition after bringing her home Monday night and having a blood pressure spike on the same night.

What have I learnt during this past week of chaos, mayhem, stress, fun and frustration?  Not a lot I'm afraid. I've learnt that I feel like a hamster in a wheel, spinning round and round and achieving only a bad headache and temper to match. 

In contrast I've also enjoyed the small things. Because as so many times we are reminded by little inspirational memes, they ARE the big things.

I've hugged my boy so tight, I've giggled with my baby. I've heard my elder girl explain to me her economic theories of life. I've enjoyed a visit with Dad where we held a normal conversation about his living arrangements, and how we would both prefer he be somewhere else.

I've felt blessed by all my family this week, as well as infuriated!

And I have no answers. Not one. All my blogging, and theorising and mantras continue to boil down to the fact that I have to make a huge effort for happiness, that it doesn't just 'come' and that order in my life similarly doesn't come easily.

Interestingly I did see this YouTube clip about how as we get older, we see time as speeding up; and that if we increase our new, novel experiences, we improve our memory making, and our sense of time going more slowly, with more meaning.

This inspired me to stop complaining and to start moving. At the moment that means working a little more towards some travelling, and also to look at seeing more live music, getting ready for 2 birthday parties and doing something meaningful with this last week of school holidays.

Seems like a lot doesn't it?  It IS a lot. No wonder I'm tired just thinking about that, plus all the other details!  Maybe that's what I need to work on next / most of all - how to make everything SEEM simpler!  Get the 'clutter' out of my mind!

End of Challenge Week summary

This is the summary of my week. I am finding this system a really good way of record-keeping, its like a cheating diary! I just pop a few words in each section and voila, there is some idea of the tone of my day!

Overally I think I summarised it well last night. More dietary rigour and keep up the efforts with the remainder.  Tonight I brought home my eldest child after a week with Nana & Pop, so tomorrow will be very different with all three babies in the house with me! Hopefully not too many arguments! Pikelets for breakfast tomorrow, and a craft day for all children planned.

I feel a sense of achievement as I walked into a chaotic mess this evening after along day at work; and rather than waste energy on being upset, I simply started cleaning and in no time at all all the dishes were in the sink, leftover food in the bin, the kitchen table clean and floor beginning to look less like a cylone damaged area.

This week coming I need to organise my bills and budget again as it has slipped in recent weeks; and begin to organise after school activities and sports for three little folk. Plus more cleaning and crafting!

Time with each child

Two weeks ago:
I don't know what other people's experience has been once having a third child, but in our family it has thrown the dynamic into what can be kindly described as total chaos.  Noise levels are higher, random crazy stuff that children do is much higher and focus on any activity is much lower.

Partially to counter this, and partially because I know that our boy misses out on time with me all the time (middle child issue!), this weekend we did one day with him and Mummy and then today I spent time with our eldest.

I enjoyed myself so much, that I can see this being a regular thing, and a way to reconnect one on one with the children who are swamped when we are all together in chaos.  I'm thinking that next week, we will swop, and hubby can have one on one with the older children one at a time while I have our baby and whoever isn't having Daddy time.

As weekends go overall there was still chaos, but it was countered by the lovely time I had just hanging out low-key with my little bloke; and then today having a couple of hours in the surf with my big girl, without having to restrict our swimming due to a small toddler!  And the weather was ideal for it, water temperature was 22 degrees and just refreshing rather than chilling!  I hope this beautiful autumn weather holds out a bit longer so that we can have a few more beach adventures.

UPDATE: on reflection I realise that my eldest frequently manages to get time alone with both myself and hubby, so the 'alone time' project is going to continue mostly as a way to keep a good connection with our boy. Strategising to separate children for different things on the weekend is a great way for us to keep sanity for all concerned, as this weekend on Saturday we kept our youngest at home with me because she is getting tired of being in the car constantly. This gave hubby and son some alone time out at gymnastics.

We've also built a little fireplace, which everyone is loving in the cold weather, to cook potatoes in jackets, warm garlic bread, toast, fire-roasted chicken breasts and toasted marshmallows for dessert.  This has been a terrific weekend activity, re-engaging our fussiest eater with a range of yummy food. Tonight's plan includes cooking corn in the coals as well.

Winter has certainly arrived, so I don't think we'll be getting any more glorious beach days until spring arrives. Until then, this make-do fireplace is going to see some adventures.

3 months of bloggy goodness - Exercise Update

I am reading that heading and I'm thinking 'soggy' goodness, like cereal when it’s been sitting long enough to lose its crunch! Certainly the first half or more of my time blogging has been 'soggy' here; it even rained again today, though thankfully only a light shower!

I'm not having a lot of new thoughts to share at the moment, but I am thinking quite a lot about my progress or lack thereof. And thus this post is born, a bit of a recap of all the things. As it turned out, my recap was quite extensive, so here is the exercise instalment! More to follow!

Exercise and health

Why?
The last time I was a healthy weight was about 7 years ago, since then I was plagued with mostly auto-immune health concerns. Two years ago while pregnant it was discovered that I had high blood pressure. Everything turned out fine with the pregnancy, and my blood pressure did the expected dropping after bub was born, however my Dad was re-admitted to hospital three months later and my blood pressure hasn't recovered!

What?
I have spent the last 18 months or so concentrating on improving my health. In February 2012 I began Tai Chi classes to assist my pain from psoriatic arthritis and my hypertension. Tai Chi was brilliant, and still is, however I managed to gain 10kgs in December while sitting at Dad's hospital bedside, which prompted a visit to my GP and a renewed effort specifically for weight loss to improve my blood pressure. I did excellently for the first few weeks, losing 5kgs and getting a cholesterol reading of 3.5. The next few weeks proved harder and I was feeling a little bit desperate, when along came my first Bruce Springsteen concert! Especially since seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Melbourne last month I have been a woman possessed with a need to get on with my life as healthily as I possibly could, with no excuses. I was inspired to reach my goal of weighing 90kgs by the end of this month (today). While this goal appears to have eluded me, the scales are stubbornly saying I've lost only 2 of the required 5kgs in the past 6 weeks, I have continued to exercise, walking almost every day for half an hour.

What I've learned!
The benefits I’ve noticed are simply terrific, and I've learnt some things along the way too. For starters, I've always hated runners or joggers, and preferred to walk in sandals than in a closed in shoe. That is until I bought a pair of 'reef boots' on the cheap. I am now firmly of the belief, that regardless of whether they're designer expensive trendy new 'ultra-thin-sole' runners or cheapies like mine, that the best shoes in the world are the 'barely there' variety. Of course your mileage may vary, but they're worth checking out!

It really helps to get a decent song mix for the time you spend exercising, obviously at the moment I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen, but anything you find uplifting that gets you inspired to lift your feet higher, move faster and generally pump out that energy! Speaking of which, today marked the latest instalment of Bruce Springsteen concerts in Oslo.  This seems to have made me a little bit lighter on my feet, even though I am not going to any of them!

I've also learned that exercise affects a whole lot more than your body size and shape. The changes I've noticed in myself go across the whole spectrum of being human! And they're all beneficial!

Benefits of Exercise

• I am much happier and calmer. It is considerably easier to be calmer now that I exercise regularly. I am surprised at how much easier it is for me to be polite and reasonable in stressful situations, and how I am far less ruffled than usual! Exercise really seems to help with keeping cool emotionally.
• Many people seem to think I've lost weight, so I'll take that. It seems that either muscle really does weigh more than fat, or I'm simply a nicer shape for the walking.
• I have more energy for playing with my children
• I can now run, jog and jump - I couldn't do those things at the beginning of the year
• My arthritis is far less inhibiting. The joints that are severely affected (right Achilles and left wrist) are still agonising frequently, but I just carry on through the pain, take the occasional paracetamol and don't give in to the temptation to feel disabled.
• My psoriasis is far less present. I've had psoriasis for 5 years now, and it is quite extensive, all over my arms and legs mostly. The psoriasis on my arms is now almost gone (just scarring) and on my legs is quite mild compared to just a few months ago. It leads me to wonder if exercise plays a significant part in maintaining a healthy immune system. It’s certainly not something my rheumatologist mentioned, but perhaps something as simple as exercise does not pay for her contribution to scientific research with drug trials!
• Gone are the excuses for not exercising! There are no 'reasons' for not exercising, only excuses! If you are injured, seek rehab, if you have limitations, set out to break them or at least bend them with professional help! I am finding I am also slowly eradicating excuses from other areas of my life, in fact I feel another Jedi post coming up based on Yoda's "Do or do not, there is not TRY"
• Much as I lament the brown snakes, hills and crooked footpaths, I really do love my neighbourhood and walking under the stars in my streets is a precious gift, that I am fortunate enough to live somewhere so nice, safe and friendly. I'm not so sure about the reptilian population though.

Where to from here?
I am going to keep up the walking, increase the Tai Chi, and spend some of my effort on consulting a personal trainer to make sure I'm doing everything I can and should to get as healthy as possible, as quickly as possible. I still have the goal of 80kgs before the end of winter. Apparently healthy weight for me is ten more kilos lighter again, but I'll see how I go getting to that first goal. If we could afford it, I'd be taking the family skiing this year, so that might yet happen, we will see how budgeting fares!

 

Add in what you want ... in life!

A wise friend once said this to me regarding changing my dietary habits for the better.  I was concerned with how to manage the daunting prospect of attempting a raw food based diet.  She simply said "Don't focus on taking out the wrong foods, just add in the good foods."

It occurs to me that this is a terrific motto for all aspects of life.  Forget what isn't working, ignore it.  Focus on what does work, what nourishes, inspires and leaves you feeling good. Do that more. And things will naturally improve. 

I have been following this advice with my diet for over a year and for the most part, despite many difficult circumstances, including times when I felt like we lived off takeaway food, I still would make the effort to add in my leafy green Kale (super leaf for my arthritis) and Cos and other salad.  Overall, with the exception of 6 weeks when Dad was in hospital over summer, my improvements to diet have been consistent, so much so that as I snack now I automatically go to add Kale! I almost made myself a jam sandwich twice today (normally I don't even eat bread) and both times have stopped myself and grabbed Kale instead. Sure, I buttered the bread (another thing that I almost never do), but at least along with the bad food, I've given myself two serves of vitamin goodness.

While advocating for my Dad over and over again with new nurses, new doctors, and then repeating the entire process upon his return to the nursing home, I realise now that the technique I've learnt is much the same.  There is only a limited time when you have these healthcare providers ear, before their other demands take them away. I've learnt to focus on what I want most during that tiny window of opportunity, and to hell with other, small issues. Most of all, I try to refrain from comment about what I do not like. It just doesn't wash.  If they have been lax in looking after his hygiene, but there is a much greater concern about whether he needs oxygen assistance, then I stick to querying his breathing.  Eventually the other factors are resolved.  Its the biggest, most important and critical stuff I want them to pay attention to first.

I know it has worked in my household cleaning. As long as I'm realistic and remember that I need to pay attention to the whole house sometimes, there has been some real consistency happening in the last couple of years with making new habits around the kitchen, laundry and floors.

This doing more of what you want to see more of works for exercise too, particulary with me now that I've been inspired by the workout of dancing at a concert for 3 hours (twice!) I am finding it very easy to get out there and get more exercise with walking, jumping, jogging, whatever I can fit into the busy days.

Most of all, I think that seeing as I am dreaming of a beach holiday, I should make the most of the beach that is nearby and visit more often.  Perhaps  that will help manifest one further afield.  If not, at least I'll have enjoyed the local beaches!

I challenge you to this month, and until the end of May, find one area of your life where you can 'add in' something you desire, simply by prioritising it and adding it in right now! 

The Big Routine - What do I need?

Vegetable gardening week has thus far been an abyssmal flop.  I did have one day of planting, and managed to acquire some cuttings of Nasturtium, that are excellent for keeping away pests.  So instead of updating on the nonexistent veggie progress, I’m taking sometime out to review my month’s blogging to see what kind of routines that have been on my mind.  Hopefully it will give me some idea of a daily cleaning routine that I can then experiment with next week.

A personalised summary of routine cleaning and organising from previous blogs shows the features my cleaning routine needs to have:

1.       Using the electronic diary in the phone for all family commitments works

2.       I like to make cleaning fun, with games, aps and fun sounding things like 27 fling boogie.

3.       I can’t clean ‘all the things’ at night late, it leads to insomnia!

4.       Focussing on one area a week works well to remind me to prioritise cleaning

5.       It would be beneficial to have regular visitors to keep a level of cleaning frenzy going

6.       Whenever possible, always leave every room brighter (eg pickup rubbish/junk) throughout every day

7.       Regularly cleanout the fridge before bin day, pay bills as soon as they arrive (I’ve had some disappear into the paper piles!), upload pictures at least monthly, send greetings quarterly.

8.       Spend at least 2 hours everyday on cleaning until the chaos is controlled.

9.       Have 2 days in a row alone in the house to clean every fortnight at least, again until it is controlled.

10.   Keep on top of my teeth and hair care to keep me feeling presentable to the world

11.   Make effort to have some ‘emergency’ supplies to be prepared for changes.

 How to apply these criteria is coming up in part 2 of the big routine!

Cleaning habits, Challenge week works!

I've come to a realisation about the creation of good habits. Small good habits, or small efforts made repeatedly, lead to a self-regulating habit. Just like this post on "Habit V's Guilt" I am discovering that baby steps do indeed make cleaning progress. Not only do baby steps eventually lead to real changes, but the slow creation of habits over time creep in.

There is something about confidence that makes a contribution here too. The entire theme for this post started out when I happily noticed that the laundry has managed to stay in a state of what I'd call controlled chaos since the great laundry challenge week (updates found here, here and here).

The state of the laundry looks pretty awful at the moment, but the reality is that I'm getting through my 1-2 loads a day from beginning to end and for the most part, everything is where it should be. The same kind of thing is happening in the kitchen. Sure the hard-to-wash-up stuff sometime lingers, and there always seems to be leftover washing up, but its not the same dirty pot sitting here on Thursday that was there last weekend. Its a new pot, replacing the cake tin.  I think when I am more confident, and my habits are even better, I can raise the expectation that no dirty dishes will be there from one day to the next.

I think I'm getting all my concepts mushed up in a mess here, but what I'm figuring out is that by giving myself permission not to be perfect in my habits, while simultaneously keeping up some confidence that I'll get these things done, I'm managing to keep on top of some routines.

All I need to do now is keep up with the decluttering and slowly add in more routine cleaning.  Seems so simple but I suspect it will be a slow road.

Something also seems to be brewing in the wider family as this evening my husband has swept the floor without any prompting. 

When all else fails, fake it, cut corners & take a shortcut!

Today is a day of cutting corners. In the end, that is what has made it a successful day.  All the corner cutting has paid off with a hefty dose of "hey I did it". Sometimes faking it till you make it really is the magic formula!  I've heard people say that before - its certainly written in the book I'm reading "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. After my experience today, I would agree that there is a lot to be gained in terms of getting things done and positive energy in having a go at this strategy!

There are a never-ending number of ways you can 'fake it', some of my favourite cheats and shortcuts include:
- putting on music for little ones to dance to to buy a few minutes of instant fun
- making 'fake' dips, like 'corn relish' dip - blend some cream cheese and a jar of corn relish - voila, tasty dip, looks homemade! A similar dip can be made with a packet of french onion soup, as shown here, or you can also make up about 1/4 of a cup of soup first, it make the blending easier!
- applying a thin layer of wax to a clean stovetop to make spills easy to wipe off - I'm yet to do this one, it is pinned to my new "Organising Energy" pinterest page, here.
- pouring some vinegar into the bottom of the dishwasher to kill germs
- adding vinegar to washing up for an extra sparkly finish
- deliberately hugging for at least 30 seconds or more even when I don't feel like cuddling, because thats how long it takes endorphins and other good hug-hormones to work. This one really works a treat!
- I've already mentioned my inability to do birthdays weekly here. So I make do with my post office issues, and send them quarterly. Everyone still gets a card, and while I've had a few comments on the earliness / lateness of the cards, what I haven't felt is guilty for not sending one at all. It really bugs me. I think birthday cards are important, no matter your age. So when I don't send them (like I haven't sent any this year!) I feel quite bad for the lack of respect and love I've shown my family and friends.

The special fake-it day I had today involved quite a few moments of making do, and getting on with it. This is the story of my fake-it day.

Today I attended a local birthing and mother's community group. It is a bring-a-plate thing. So I took these rather ordinary jam rolls bought from the supermarket, and dressed them up a little!

I simply cut each roll into thirds, tured them onto their sides and suddenly I had little mini rolls. Sure, everyone probably knows they're store bought, but they're now snazzier! For a children's function you could add some icing writing on the plate to make little snails!

 

Going with the theme of shortcuts - I always wash out stains that needs a bit of a handwash while I'm in the shower. It is strangely soothing using your feet to clean while relaxing. One of the advantages of the shiny new shower, inspirational place to do the handwashing!

We even 'cheated' at taking my son to school today. I dropped him and his Dad off, reassuring him that Daddy couldn't leave as I had the car! Separation anxiety eased. A great schoolday was had and the school library got a parent helper for an entire day!

I'll leave you with a cool idea for some down-time play, especially on these crazy, rainy days.  I had some flour that had for some reason been left with its lid off, so we made playdough! The no-stove recipe I use is:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 tablespoon Cream of Tartare
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup of hot / boiling water
stir, knead and add food colouring.

And when you are all done playing, store the homemade playdough in the fridge for next time in a ziplock sandwich sized bag!

Thats it from my day of short cuts and 'faking it"

Leave each room a little brighter

Thats my motto for today. The idea comes from the wonderful wisdom of "Organise and Decorate Everything" found here on Facebook and here on the www.

Day 3 of her 28 ways to stay organised is a cracker - with "Always leave a room looking better than when you entered it." You can follow the rest of the 28 days on facebook. For now, I'm focussing on Day 3, and how much difference that can make.

This morning before school, I must have done laps between the living room, front door, back door, laundry and kitchen at least half a dozen times. The fun of having 2 schoolkids and a toddler! Keeping in mind the mantra to leave the room a little better, the living room soon had dirty dishes removed, a bit of plastic wrap binned, and some clothes put into the laundry dirty sorting pile. My kitchen table got cleaned off over several trips past it to the bin and the few things that had fallen out of (or never quite made it to) the sorted dirty laundry were quickly put in their proper place. It created a lovely vortex of positive energy whereever I went, because I was on the lookout for the sort of debris in the house that I normally try not to look at!!! Funnily enough, those little things made a difference to how the house felt when I returned after the school drop-off, I had taken a load of rubbish to the bin!

On that note, its bin day again today and the fridge got another clean-out - anything potentially suspicious all tossed out to make room for fresh food and straight into the rubbish truck!!!

Another bonus today was the impromptu window wipe - I went to open my son's juice bottle and it had turned rancid in the heat - and exploded all over the window above the sink! So the window cleaner, paper towel and I had a little pre-breakfast date to clean up. :) The room is now a lot brighter, literally!

Habits v's Guilt

Today has me thinking about the way to make a new habit. All the experts say, do something for 30 consecutive days and its a habit. Great. In my experience about all I manage in 30 consecutive days is eating and sleeping (the blog hasn't made it that far even). However I do have some thoughts on the tricky balance between trying to create a new habit, and being swamped by guilt and despair at being unable to stick at anything for 30 days. This line of thought is triggered by circumstances today. Not only am I still up at the hospital with Dad trying to get him enough pain relief, but my elder daughter came down with flu-like symptoms and needed a close eye for a while there. So my plans to conquer the lawn went awry about 10am. Although the mower and the lawn had a pretty big get together before that and between us, my husband and I mowed about 1/3 of the block. Go us!

Then there was juggling the whole sick girl, pained father issue. It basically took over the day. Spending a bit of it reading "The Hobbit" aloud to my sick girl and both of us falling asleep took up a few hours! I'll write more about that another time. What I am realising however is that the past few days, allocating 'extra' time to cleaning the house is what I need to be doing every day. Not just sometimes. Because life will continue to happen, not every day is going to give me a free 3 hours to declutter. I can apply the pricipal I learnt when pregnant with my eldest child. In order to prevent gestational diabetes, I took up exercise. My husband and I walked every evening for 20 minutes around the neighbourhood. Those walks became a daily routine. But there were days they didn't happen. sometimes even multiple days in a row. Normally after a few days of missed walking I'd be so filled with guilt and it would serve only to hold me back and make getting out the door bigger than ben hur and too big a deal, too hard. What I learnt 9 years ago however (and seem to have forgotten) is that it doesn't matter if you miss a day, or how many days you miss. All you need to do is pick yourself up and keep going. Just don't 'stop' or even think that you've stopped. I need to apply this principle to my cleaning.

In my case its not just about swimming, but how much swimming! I need to remember to keep swimming at least 2 hours a day to get any progress! I find I've been unable to do this as yet, but from here on the idea is to just transfer that mindset from evening walks to devoting sufficient time to the cleanliness of the house. It just simply has to be done. Too many years and too much illness and neglect. The time to change all of it is now. I also had a scary thought I'll be saving for later. If I have too much stuff to look after, then I need less stuff to make life easier!!! OR, what I'm trying first, is spending more time every day on upkeep.

Crunching the numbers

I've decided I simply don't do enough housework. Sounds reasonable right? Simple enough to work out? Well its still a revelation in my world. The sheer volume of time (is that some sort of grammatical oopsie?) that I need to spend to get through this mess of my house must be over double, probably triple what I currently DO spend. Its a tall order to try to get through the normal daily grind AS WELL as decluttering and cleaning out from behind all the clutter in a minimal amount of hours a day. Today is Day 1 of a hopefully 3-day child and husband free declutter / cleaning frenzy. Things started off well, I wrote a quick list of my 'initial' things to do, and then realised during the day that I wasn't going to make my goal of 'catch up on normal cleaning plus one extra job' unless I really took time to finish this evening. In total I probably spent around 2-3 hours cleaning today. It was not enough! 4 hours and I'd see some real progress after a few days. So I'm sticking with laundry week (today was 3 loads washed and dried, sorting tomorrow), but I'm going to see how tired I am after a weekend cleaning frenzy and see if I can stick to the 3 hours a day at least until I make some inroads into the cluttered messy areas. Here are some before and after shots of my 'project' tonight, the kitchen windowsill.